FTFC19 Columbus Jets designed by Fidget

[Fidget]

For the 2019 design challenge I'm trying to bring to life the logo of the Columbus Jets.

I'm not a huge baseball fan, but I was already thinking about this challenge when I went to a Columbus Clippers game and saw this older logo in the gift shop.
The Jets played here in Columbus from 1955 to 1970. The name and logo have recently been used as part of a collegiate summer league which has a Twitter account by the same name.

This is the only image that I've found of their logo. It does sort of look like fighter jets of that time period.

I decided on this over the Tie Fighter Advanced and Tron Light Jet as I think this is more "doable" given the other projects I also want to work on.

 

[Fidget]

Well, it crashes very well. After the second, the left EDF seems to be out of sync. There's a shot at the end of the video. I took it out of the housing and it does the same thing.

 

[Fidget]

Build instructions attached.

 

[Fidget]

Plans attached. I didn't figure out a nice way to make all of the score lines red rather than black, but if you've built FT models before, you'll figure them out easily.

SVG files also attached in case you want to move the parts around or reuse any of them. I did not size the full size plans to any particular paper size, just large enough so that everything fit. Print in Adobe Acrobat Reader with the poster setting if you want to print on regular paper.

 

[Fidget]

So far I've bought a plastic bat at Target, plan to stretch the Bloody Wonder wings from SP0NZ, use the FT mustang canopy design, and hopefully recycle the 50mm EDF I bought for last year's challenge (and buy it a twin). And from suggestions in the original challenge discussion, use a clear piece of plastic as a vertical stabilizer.

 

[Namactual]

This will be a cool build, definitely something you don't see every day.

I wonder if you could make the little exhaust clouds a profile shape and have them work as vstabs?

 

[Fidget]

I wonder if you could make the little exhaust clouds a profile shape and have them work as vstabs?

Clever! Thanks for the suggestion! I had been assuming I would do it on the rear like a traditional vertical stabilizer, but I like your idea a lot. I might actually be able to put them at the outer edge of the "power pod", out of the EDF airflow and basically like winglets. That would keep it to a flying wing or plank design.

 

[FAI-F1D]

Oh so very cool! Proper whimsy and generalized fun.

 

[rockyboy]

Love it!!

And love the idea of profile exhaust clouds (and a profile pilot) to help with yaw stabilization. With a little bit of differential thrust control, that should do the trick

 

[Fidget]

Yeah, I had been planning to skip the pilot since I couldn't think of a toy to use that had that 3D shape. But if I cut it out of flat foam and paint it that might work well.

 

[rockyboy]

Stevens Aero does a lot of fun looking profile pilots for his designs for ideas too

https://www.stevensaero.com/product/4charlie-laser-cut-kit/

 

[Pilot_35]

That should be a really fun design! Seeing it fly would be awesome. Good Luck!

 

[OliverW]

Any progress?

 

[Fidget]

@SquirrelTail Sorry for the long delay in responding!
I was spending too much time thinking about hobby stuff this fall so took a little break.
I did get together a glider test version:

I bought a plastic bat at Target, used the wings from the FT Extra, used some waterbottles for the EDF pods, and a roughly sized vertical piece for the cartoon boy. Figured out it wants to balance at the front of the spar, and with some washers on the nose, I got one good 5 foot glide, but then it spiked into the ground again:

I'm drawing up the bat shape in foamboard now. It was hard to get the spar (5/8" round wood dowel) centered and nicely through the plastic, and I never could figure out how I was going to get a nice looking battery hatch in it. (Or any of the other electronics neatly inside.
In foam I can more easily mark out a spot for a square dowel spar and a couple of other spots for smaller dowels to help alignment.

 

[jaredstrees]

Glad to see this project is still alive, certainly made me smile! Good luck, we want to see it fly!

 

[OliverW]

@SquirrelTail Sorry for the long delay in responding!
I was spending too much time thinking about hobby stuff this fall so took a little break.
I did get together a glider test version:
View attachment 120952
I bought a plastic bat at Target, used the wings from the FT Extra, used some waterbottles for the EDF pods, and a roughly sized vertical piece for the cartoon boy. Figured out it wants to balance at the front of the spar, and with some washers on the nose, I got one good 5 foot glide, but then it spiked into the ground again:
View attachment 120953
I'm drawing up the bat shape in foamboard now. It was hard to get the spar (5/8" round wood dowel) centered and nicely through the plastic, and I never could figure out how I was going to get a nice looking battery hatch in it. (Or any of the other electronics neatly inside.
In foam I can more easily mark out a spot for a square dowel spar and a couple of other spots for smaller dowels to help alignment.

Dude. That thing looks awesome. Well worth the wait!

 

[FoamyDM]

Plastic BAT!!! duh of course.
Are you going to do the Ducted gremlin motors in the bottles! that would be great!

Hmm... this gives me more ideas for the Tachyon 1408 motors with the 3" blades... 2-liter top mounted to a rod and the cap screws in, with a bottle set for the EDF duct. (something like the SMARTwater bottles as they are smooth, or a 1liter)

Kicking but. I can't wait to see the baseball man riding this thing!

 

[Fidget]

Thank you all for your support.

I'm going to use FMS EDFs. I had bought one for the XP-81 project for last year's contest, so bought a second one. At @PsyBorg 's suggestion I bought a gremlin motor to try to make my own "EDF" last year but never tried it out. I did find some aluminum "prop guards" on Banggood that you would use for a quad. That gave it a place to mount and centered it within a defined circle.

Based on that idea, I also bought an IKEA trash can and put VersaWing wings on it and am mounting a C pack equivalent motor to make an ingesting combat "EDF". Started that last spring and got it put together but never got the electronics in.

The water bottles in the picture are basically the same as the SMARTwater ones you mention @FoamyDM. I was going to use them in the full build, but when I started cutting them to fit the EDFs inside, they were more destroyed than not, so I decided to build foamboard tubes instead. It's also hard to cut the inlets and outlets neatly.

 

[rockyboy]

How's it going? Do we get to see some awesome flight video soon?

 

[Fidget]

I hope so. I calculated the diameter of the baseball bat portion wrong, so my first build was scaled wrong. I sketched the corrections several weeks ago but haven't finished them. I'm hoping to get it "flying" this weekend.